


Worth It

by xylohypha



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: First aid tips, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 18:25:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylohypha/pseuds/xylohypha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John would have noticed if Rodney had raced off to the bathroom afterwards every time they had sex, so it took him a while to notice the pattern.</p><p>Set in Season two-ish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth It

John would have noticed if Rodney had raced off to the bathroom afterwards every time they had sex, so it took him a while to notice the pattern. 

Sleepy, easy, slow sex? There'd be leisurely kissing and lazy napping together afterwards, and John never minded waking up with pins and needles in his arm. Hasty, I'm-so-tired-I'm-almost-dead-but-I'm-still-horny, let's-do-it-and-pass-out sex? Not quite so much napping as exhausted collapse, and John still didn't mind the arm. Lusty, furious, intense sex of the kind which ought to have left Atlantis rocking in the waves and made John wish there was an Olympics of sex because Rodney would have been so pleased at their gold medal? Never any napping at all, because Rodney was up and out of bed and into the bathroom almost before John ever caught his breath, and before Rodney came out again John had either had to leave for his own quarters, or he'd fallen asleep and Rodney didn't wake him when he left for his, and in the morning he was always alone.

It wasn't for the reason it might have been. The sex they had was amazing enough that they hadn't—yet—got round to the kind which made clean-up afterwards more than a matter for a damp washcloth, or lack of mopping up afterwards more than a minor irritation and sometimes the cause of some involuntary depilation. And _that_ wasn't Rodney's problem, because while he'd yelp and complain in the morning sometimes upon discovering just how thoroughly they'd managed to stick themselves together, it didn't seem to drive him to take measures to prevent it. 

John didn't think it was a sort of penance thing, either, washing off the immorality and all that. Rodney couldn't have hidden it if he felt that way. No, there was no way the smug glee on Rodney's face when John came to his room or when John opened his own door and pulled Rodney inside and kissed him could have had anything to do with repressed guilt or shame, and the look in Rodney's eyes when he touched John was always transparently joyful. Put it this way: if Rodney'd had to do a Hester Prynne, he'd probably be wearing a big fat red "H" on each shoulder and another blazoned on his chest and he'd be walking around as if it was "S" for Superman. 

All the same, John felt hesitant about coming out and asking Rodney why the bathroom thing. They didn't do that, _talking_ about stuff like that. Or John didn't, and Rodney didn't seem inclined to, either. But after a while it did make John really start to wonder about it, and so one morning very very early, when everyone who didn't have to be awake ought to have been asleep, John kept himself awake after he and Rodney had finished. Factoring his Social Security number and then his old phone numbers and then his driver's license number kept him conscious long enough that he was still awake when he heard his door shut. He rolled over and hauled himself out of bed, then dragged on some sweats and his sneakers, and padded down the hallways of Atlantis, feeling rather more like a stalker than he'd expected to.

Rodney's door opened right up for him, of course. Not that they'd talked about that, either, but Rodney'd sputtered and waved his hands reprovingly when he'd caught John waiting in the hallway for him to get back one evening, and after that, the door always opened even if Rodney wasn't there. 

Rodney was in the bathroom. Through the half-open door, John could see one leg and most of his ass, BDUs stretched taut across it, and the curve of his lower back, pale and naked, and that _couldn't_ be a comfortable position for Rodney to be twisted into. John moved forward, not entirely motivated—he'd swear—by the memory of the limitations Rodney's aching back sometimes put on their sex life.

"What the hell?" he said.

Rodney jumped and dropped the brown bottle he'd been holding, then scrambled to pick it up out of the sink. He glared at John's reflection in the mirror.

"What? Damn it, that was a new bottle of peroxide!" Rodney screwed the lid back on the bottle and set it down, then pitched a wad of gauze into the wastebasket in the corner. "You'd think Carson would be a little more generous with it. He knows a little antiseptic sooner is better than a lot of antibiotic later and body parts getting infected and falling off, but I practically have to _beg_." He cocked his head and said, "You had a reason for trying to scare me into a heart attack?" 

John flushed as he spotted the reddish-purple bruising on Rodney's neck. Amazing, how very obvious it was that that was a human bite. Bites. 

"Uh. I'm sorry?" 

"Never mind. I'm almost used to it. If a day goes by without something trying to kill me in the lab, or something trying to kill me on some planet or other or something trying to kill me right here in my home—where you'd think I'd be safe—I almost feel, well, more surprised than disappointed, I'll admit. Was there something you needed, Colonel?"

"Oh. The—?" John gestured towards Rodney's neck. "Sorry? I got carried away."

"I remember." Rodney grinned at him. "You _do_ that, sometimes."

"But—"

"But what?" Rodney nudged him out of his way, crossed to the dresser and pulled out a T-shirt. "You didn't—" he yanked the shirt over his head, "—hear me complaining at the time, did you?"

"But, _antiseptic_? I didn't think—" John moved closer, caught Rodney by the shoulder and tugged at the neck of the T-shirt until he could see. "It doesn't look like it's bleeding—I would have _tasted_!"

"No, you barely broke the skin; it's more scraped than anything. Gonna bruise like a son-of-a-bitch, though."

"Rodney!"

"What. Oh, spare me." Rodney rolled his eyes. "No, I don't get off on bruising. But you know, file it under things that feel good enough at the time that I don't really mind the odd scrape or whatever afterwards. Not that I'm not cognizant of the wisdom of antiseptic prophylaxis. Hence—" he waved his hand towards the bathroom, "Soap and water first, and then a little peroxide." 

"And you couldn't do that in my bathroom?" John asked.

"I—" Rodney twitched and turned to shove the dresser drawer shut. "I didn't want you to _stop_ , just because I—"

"Okay. I get it," John said. He cupped Rodney's chin in his hand and kissed him. "It's all right. You can even keep some peroxide in my bathroom if you want."

"If I can talk Carson out of another bottle," Rodney muttered, then he brightened. "On the other hand, if you ask—! Uh-huh. You're sure to come back from a mission all scraped up before long, aren't you?"

John smirked. "Bound to."

Rodney glared at him. "But not on purpose. And don't get carried away."

In the end, it was a supply of sterile alcohol swabs, and not peroxide, and Rodney bitched about the sting every time. John didn't mind listening to him, though; he enjoyed having really good sex and then _not_ waking up alone. Pins and needles or not.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in 2007. Just pulling a few older things over from LJ....


End file.
